Key Words: Trump takes credit for coining the term ‘fake’ — at least in regard to the media

President Trump indicated, unchallenged, in his interview the other day with Mike Huckabee on the Trinity Broadcasting Network that he believed he may have coined the term “fake,” telling the former Arkansas governor and Republic presidential candidate:

‘The media is — really, the word, I think one the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with, is fake.’

President Trump

”You did not invent a word from Middle English,” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau quipped at a recent Chicago event.

See: Trump lashes out at ‘fake news,’ ‘ingrates’ for criticizing Puerto Rico aid efforts

Trump, on the Huckabee show, continued: ”I guess other people have used it, perhaps, over the years, but I’ve never noticed it.”

The phrase “fake news,” of course came into common use last fall in connection with the wide dissemination of willfully false, and often fantastical (“Pizzagate,” for example, or the papal endorsement of Trump’s candidacy for the White House), pieces of online content that seek to match in style and tone a rudimentary news story. Trump, lest his stunning November victory be undercut by an examination of such extraneous factors, sought to turn the label on mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times and, more recently, NBC News. He later began referring to them as fake media.

Also in Key Words: Trump’s presidency has not been easy on the Onion

And: Mark Zuckerberg admits he underestimated impact of fake news on Facebook

The Margin: This person makes $10,000 a month writing fake news

MarketWatch topics: Fake news